This year's Clojure Conj was a complete blast! I got to meet and
reconnect with great, friendly, brilliant people, and had enormous fun
the whole time. And by the way - if you were hoping to get a sticker,
please email me at
daniel@flyingmachinestudios.com
and let me know how I can get one to you!

The main thing I want to say is THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who went
out of their way to share their appreciation for Clojure for the Brave
and True; I know how easy it is to feel nervous about approaching a
stranger! The book is a labor of love, an attempt at both expressing
myself creatively and bringing joy to others through entertainment and
education, and it is immensely gratifying to hear that my efforts are
paying off. Putting myself out there over and over with each chapter
and revision is nervewracking as hell, but y'all really make me feel
like it's worth it. I have to admit, though, that I'm finding it hard
to adjust back to normal life. Why aren't the other people waiting in
this airport with me coming up and thanking me? Don't they know who I
am!?!? Seriously, though - thanks everybody, and I hope you're enjoying your
Clojure journey :)

Second, I'm grateful to Alex Miller
(@puredanger), Cognitect, and all of
the excellent speakers for creating such a great experience for
everyone. Send them your thanks, and go watch the talks at
the ClojureTV YouTube channel.

Did anyone else freaking love the crime museum? What an awesome
choice for a party venue! If you're into noir/hardboiled
entertainment, here are some recommendations:

True Detective - I am
completely nuts over the first season. The acting is superb, and the
storytelling is some of the best you'll see in any TV show or
movie. It actually ruined all TV for me - it was out around the same
time as The Walking Dead, and it made The Walking Dead feel clunky
and boring. This is the gold standard for noir entertainment.

Sleeper,
a gritty graphic novel by Ed Brubaker. Also check out his "Fatale"
and "Criminal" series. His works are suspenseful and heartbreaking,
with great art and great storytelling.

Hard Magic / The Grimnoir Chronicles
Frankly, I expected this book to be complete trash, but man did it
grab me! I came away incredibly impressed at the author's ability to
craft an action-packed novel that actually had depth with prose that
exceeds most literary works.

Now, normally I try to write stuff that's useful for readers, but the
rest of this post is essentially fanboi raving because OMG I got to
meet Bozhidar Batsov! Bozhidar is the Emacs Knight we need, and holy
crap I got a private CIDER
lesson from him. Expect an article on all the cool CIDER features
you're not using in the near future.

Other fanboi highlights:

Getting to real-life meet Mike Marsh, one of the most prolific
posters on Grateful Place and a
thoughtful, smart, and genuine good guy.

Meeting Brian Jennings, the man responsible for Emacs 24.4's
lose-focus hooks. He gets about a million geek points for persuading
the Emacs team, including and especially RMS, that the feature was a
good idea. How cool is that?